Guild Wars 2

As others have said, “Speedrun/Zerk” groups are a far cry from what some consider and/or expect out of an experienced, fast clearing group. Having “Zerk” armor isnt enough to make the run go perfect, contrary to popular belief.

Nono’s for a true zerker or speed run:

Do not run a speed signet (25% run speed). This utility is acceptble to be used during a skip or run part, but swap it out for something else for any part that involves fighting. I would not recommend it for trash running as Swiftness is superior to a 25% boost, but it surely is acceptable to run during a skip. I recommend Pot of Hylek Poison for classes without easily accessible swiftness or awareness of other classes and being in range of their group swiftness if applicable.

Never drop banner of defense as a warrior, even if all the other banners are taken by others.

Do not run the following signets: Ele water/earth. Any ranger signets other than Signet of Stone on select encounters. Dolyak Signet. Guardian 10 percent Damage reduce/wrath (condi)

Use a ranged weapon point blank in a stack. Shooting a target 1 foot away with a bow looks silly and you should recconsider weapon choice if the dungeon requires alot of stacking. If you like range that you would never swap your bow, try melee on the stacking parts, and swap to your bow if the encounter accomodates some ranging. Dont just stick to ranged weapons all the time.

Do not charge Life Sigil Stacks, Condition Damage Stacks or Momentum (Toughness) Stacks. Bloodlust and Accuracy are much perferred.

Dont show your defensive traits openly if you absoltely must run them: i.e. guardian using Strength In Numbers, Warrior having a traited defy pain etc.. Use things that the team will not be able to know and call you out on (I dont recommend this but it is reality as some people will not drop their defensive traits for anything)

DO use Constructive Cleave Positioning – Always target the middle monster if they are in a line . I I I If there is two in a line, spread out, deselect any target and position yourself in the middle of them.

Using Food and or/Oils isnt required but if your going to have one up, at least make sure its relevant. If you popped a Scarlet Oil for LA, you can pop a Undead oil for Arah. If you were too lazy in the first place, this bothers me less than the people too lazy to use it for the current dungeon,but used it on farming loot or something else.

Pulling Certain Bosses:

Pulling certain mobs/bosses in runs can be the difference of a smooth, quick kill with the team retaining their scholar bonus or a drawn out kill thats a hassle to hit the boss and/or maintain the stack without it turning into a disadvantage. I am just going to list a few examples and if this thread gets more than 1 reply or people care, feel free to add tips

Subject Alpha – Must be pulled good or he will start attacking/crystaling spire, and use his tremor aoe, hitting the team, making the team wait for him using up boon time and taking slight damage, removing their scholar rune bonus before he even comes into attack range. My method which there is probaly tons of ways, I hit him with a ranged weapon, then immediately ASAP run back to my stacked team. I do not hit, wait and then hide. I just tag, and jet back to the stack. Champ wolf, stack in corner, allow spire to hit it once, watch for the ice patch, hit the wolf, and walk back to stack immediately.

Leurent – If you have a confident exp team, move up to the second hug curve in the wall and pull. If you have low DPS and or low burst damage, goto the far curve which most people seem to do, as the boss and/or knight doesnt aggro well there and you can pull slowly rather than all at once.

Malrona – Dont charge in. Have someone use a knockback to push her into that back wall, then reflect till dead.

-There are some other points, im sure the list could go on for 100 pages like (no ranger longbow 4, no guard staff) Etc but I try to cover the things I see in common PUG speedruns, that aren’t gone over extensively on forums or maybe are less emphasized in popular postings.

I’m more inclined to disagree with some of these, especially since these seem to be PUG tips as organized groups already know this. Everything is situational, sometimes you’ll find unexpected PvE uses of some of the most obscure skills in the game (ie. Throw Bolas). It’s not a matter of “Never use” but “Is it appropriate for this situation?”

Ele signet of earth has its uses.

Ele signet of earth shines in Fractals of the Mist (Mossman, Arch Diviner, Mai) and against the Tar boss in Arah p1. Use it when it’s off CD to chain immobilization.

Signet of Air, on the other hand, is very situational, and should be used only during trash skipping.

Ranger traited Signet of the Wild can be used with FGS if you have timewarp, it can also replace Offhand Training for axe 5 (for example at Lupicus), becoming stronger than a mesmer’s Feedback.

Champ wolf you wanna wait for both ice and subsequent earth leap before pulling him tbh. With Spire just tanking the 1 attack, squishier classes like ele can still be downed. (since this is for pugs, I wouldn’t rly count on dodging or aegis)

feel free to try and fit all these requirements into an LFG advertise… beyond that, there’s no enforcing this, nor is there any need for such strictness.

Play.
How.
You.
Want.

“Elitists” actually follow this mantra better than those who chant it. :>

JJBigs.8456:

Never drop banner of defense as a warrior, even if all the other banners are taken by others.

Stopped reading there

Lindbur.2537:

Play.
How.
You.
Want.

“Elitists” actually follow this mantra better than those who chant it. :>

More like be a team player. And I’m sure these “Elitist” you call actually run more team friendly builds than say your typical healing power guardians.

Rag.3258:

JJBigs.8456:

Never drop banner of defense as a warrior, even if all the other banners are taken by others.

Stopped reading there

That’s actually one of the better things there. Defense and Tactics banners are useless. Bring a might signet for more DPS instead.

JJBigs.8456:

My method which there is probaly tons of ways, I hit him with a ranged weapon, then immediately ASAP run back to my stacked team. I do not hit, wait and then hide. I just tag, and jet back to the stack. Champ wolf, stack in corner, allow spire to hit it once, watch for the ice patch, hit the wolf, and walk back to stack immediately.

kinda confused, you say don’t use ranged weapons when stacking (which I agree with, melee makes more sense there) then you admit you do use a ranged wep to pull. For instance, lots of warriors (many of them claim are ‘zerk’) use rifle/bow when stacking/pulling. You could also use mace 5 to pull, it has more range than bow autoattk, plus it won’t cause cripple etc. which can cause problem. For the champ wolf, its possible to pull him and he drops ice patch before coming, only thing you have to be close (about 300 range) but most who do pull are way further back, this is why he downs everyone when he comes.

maxinion.8396:

Rag.3258:

JJBigs.8456:

Never drop banner of defense as a warrior, even if all the other banners are taken by others.

Stopped reading there

That’s actually one of the better things there. Defense and Tactics banners are useless. Bring a might signet for more DPS instead.

Banner of Defense has its uses in some situations.
The buff comes quite handy when fighting mossman or the chestseal in cliffside fractal.

In high level fractals, that 170 toughness won’t do anything to help when a person in PVT gear with nearly double the armor rating gets two shot (if not one) with very little health left after the first hit.

maxinion.8396:

Rag.3258:

JJBigs.8456:

Never drop banner of defense as a warrior, even if all the other banners are taken by others.

Stopped reading there

That’s actually one of the better things there. Defense and Tactics banners are useless. Bring a might signet for more DPS instead.

You must have missed the part where defbanner is strong at what it does for little investment and is a well used slot on any fight with continuous pressure.

Lindbur.2537:

In high level fractals, that 170 toughness won’t do anything to help when a person in PVT gear with nearly double the armor rating gets two shot (if not one) with very little health left after the first hit.

I just went into lv49 with pvt stuff (can’t survive agony ticks on lv50) and ye.. these 1-2k hits from mossman do hurt a lot.

Or what high level are you speaking of? And how do i get access to it?

conn.2097:

Lindbur.2537:

In high level fractals, that 170 toughness won’t do anything to help when a person in PVT gear with nearly double the armor rating gets two shot (if not one) with very little health left after the first hit.

I just went into lv49 with pvt stuff (can’t survive agony ticks on lv50) and ye.. these 1-2k hits from mossman do hurt a lot.

Or what high level are you speaking of? And how do i get access to it?

Don’t get hit

hybrid.5027:

conn.2097:

Lindbur.2537:

In high level fractals, that 170 toughness won’t do anything to help when a person in PVT gear with nearly double the armor rating gets two shot (if not one) with very little health left after the first hit.

I just went into lv49 with pvt stuff (can’t survive agony ticks on lv50) and ye.. these 1-2k hits from mossman do hurt a lot.

Or what high level are you speaking of? And how do i get access to it?

Don’t get hit

This statement does not answer any of my 2 questions, thanks for trying tho.

Toughness is never good. Like hybrid says, don’t get hit.

Edit: for the sake of being slightly less hyperbolic, the title specifically says “speedruns.” Utilities which don’t provide DPS or active defense (aegis, blinds, reflects) are just inappropriate in speedruns, where just about every tool you have should be aimed towards dealing damage.

For me, there is a difference between casual speedruns and record runs.
And we have this discussion because we’re talking about a scenario with 2 or more warriors. (look at the following quote)

Never drop banner of defense as a warrior, even if all the other banners are taken by others.

Why should you bring more than 1 warrior if you’re aiming for a optimal setup?

How much time will it save if you equip a Signet of Might instead of a Defense Banner? It’ll make melee’ing Mossman, the Snowblind Boss, etc. so much easier for the loss of a few seconds.

Someone already said it earlier:

.. defbanner is strong at what it does for little Investment ..

Also, how do you avoid all attacks when fighting at the chestseal in cliffside frac? I’m curious.
Aegis? Lots of blinds? Dodge? (oh nvm, too much dmg loss when dodging)

Remember I’m not saying Defense Banner is a must have or even better than Strength or Discipline, but it does have its uses.
In most scenarios i’d also take smth different.

170 toughness is not a lot. A zerker is still going to die if he doesn’t have active mitigation. Someone in full PTV is still going to faceroll (while do zero damage) without it. I guess we’re just going to have to disagree that it “makes a big difference.”

Agreed that more than 1 warrior is also generally unnecessary, but as you say, casual speedruns happen and you can get some overlap.

Btw, for cliffside center seal you use blinds and reflects. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=XBhu7PXMeR8#t=240

Except you forget that a Defense Banner adds like nothing. The extra toughness isn’t going to provide anything if you compared two different situations (1 with def banner, 1 without). The reality is that the same outcome will occur.

Now if the person is running PTV/PTH then that is a WHOLE different story. Then again I question that since why are people running this. High level fractals at the current scale are pretty easy to be honest. And I’m sure most people playing on 40s-50 have money or multiple level 80s outfitted with enough AR.

Most people aren’t willing to be a team player. If I was playing on my warrior and I see that my party has 2+ warrior I would switch to something more useful.

Yea this whole thing seems more like “how to look cool in supposed speedruns” than anything useful. Rangers can use signet of stone although they have 18k hp but squishy 10k ele has no right to use signet of earth?
And yes, don’t use defensive traits that people can see like strength in numbers(party-wide). Use invisible ones like shoutheals. You are so close to telling people to get 2 sets of gear with identical skins: one berserker and one magi.
Actually this is almost identical to those “zerker’s speedrun experts only” lfgs filled with bads that also have huge egos and bad attitudes to complement their lack of skill besides stacking in a corner and dpsing.

Well intentioned post and likely meant for PUGs. Yes? As many have said, there are not really many nevers. Even the most obscure and seemingly useless skills/weapons can have a use somewhere. I’ll certainly agree that a lot of these fall under the ‘niche’ category and are incredibly situational but that sort of experimentation with new methods is what makes speed runs faster and possible in different content.

I think ‘speedrun’ here doesn’t involve high level fractals. It just has too much RNG to be able to ‘speedrun’.

To answer someone who advocates the use of banner of defense, if you are the third warrior in the group, and if that is my group, I expect that person use hammer and axe/mace to cc/interrupt any approaching glob of chanters. If the group has an ele, ask for ice bow to quickly detonate everything.

For melee-ing Mossman, cripple or immobilize him, let one tank in front, DPS from behind him, dodge his gouge, or dodge his throwing-axe attack. There is also a technique to hold Mossman’s aggro as well if you don’t have a dedicated tank like Fleshed Golem or Rocky.

For melee-ing Arch Diviner, cripple, chill and immobilize him during his moving ‘active’ phase, burst him (100b) when he’s stunned and using his aoe condi field. Rinse and repeat.

For melee-ing chest seal, go to the far side, interrupt the patch of chanters when they first arrive, group them up and cleave.

For Ice elemental boss in Snowblind, the faster it gets killed, the less pressure will be put on scholar classes such as mesmer and ele. The key is to kill all the adds quickly, don’t get extra aggro, light two fire camps whenever possible and burst down the boss in between.